Directed by Joe Medeiros • Documentary • 2013 • 86 minutes
How did an unassuming housepainter from Italy pull off the greatest little known art heist in modern time? Was his motivation more than money?
Writer-director Joe Medeiros traces the path of Vincenzo Peruggia, charged with the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa from The Louvre, and finds the story of a daughter mourning the father she never knew and a country recovering from old wounds.
Combining historical photographs, animation and interviews with Peruggia's descendants, Medeiros answers how and why the man called "Macaroni" by his French co-workers absconded with and kept the legendary painting for two years. This riveting, often humorous documentary portrays a man struggling to find his way in the world and make his family proud.
Up Next in Museums, Collectors and the Art Market
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Museum Hours (Jem Cohen)
Directed by Jem Cohen • Drama • With Mary Margaret O’Hara, Robert “Bobby” Sommer, Ela Piplits • 2012 • 106 minutes
When a Vienna museum guard befriends an enigmatic visitor, the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum becomes a mysterious crossroads which sparks explorations of their lives, the city,...
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Museum of the Revolution
Directed by Srđan Keča • Documentary • 2021 • 91 minutes
“The wind got up in the night and took our plans away,” reads the proverb in the opening titles of Museum of the Revolution. The words are a reference to the 1961 plan to build a grand museum in Belgrade as a tribute to Socialist Yugoslavi...
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The New Rijksmusuem
Directed by Oeke Hoogendijk • Documentary • With Taco Dibbits, Wim Pijbes • 2014 • 131 minutes
In 2003, the ambitious renovation of one of the world's greatest museums began. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, home to glorious masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer and others, was supposed to reopen its ...
